The Internet has become a pervasive communications tool for business. Many businesses try to use the Internet to obtain customer feedback (e.g., reviews and/or ratings) on their products and services. Customers often fail to provide such feedback, however, in part because the existing feedback mechanisms are too cumbersome. There have been previous efforts to streamline the process to encourage more customer feedback. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,693,848 describes methods and systems for obtaining consumer reviews. Nevertheless, the existing processes take too many mouse clicks and too much time for many customers.
Thus, it would be highly desirable to create simpler, more streamlined mechanisms so that more customers will use the Internet to provide feedback on the products and services they obtain from businesses.